


The Stupidest Lannister

by catherineflowers



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, PWP, Season/Series 08, TBTWP, The Long Night, Winterfell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 05:29:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14513562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catherineflowers/pseuds/catherineflowers
Summary: "Loving Cersei was a passive act, something beyond his control, something he didn’t get to choose. But loving Brienne, choosing to be a man she could love too … It has driven every choice he’s made since he lost his hand, pushing him forward, pushing him to her, pushing him to this moment.He loves Brienne. He loves her. Oh Gods, how hasn’t he seen this? Cersei was right - he really is the stupidest Lannister."





	1. TBTWP

Jaime gets back through the gates of Winterfell in the early hours, filthy and exhausted. Everyone in the castle is filthy and exhausted – no one speaks. They let him in and he gets a few nods and a clap on the back from someone who is presumably glad to see him alive, but no one has the energy for anything more.

These days there’s not much difference between out there and in here – everyone is a shambling corpse.

Winterfell’s main hall, where he had once dined with the Starks and King Robert, has been converted to a sanctuary for those fighting against the Army of the Dead. The fireplaces are lit and a few of the men are huddled close to them, warming up, nursing injuries, nursing cups of thin soup, but most are asleep on the floor. It’s a mass of bodies, with barely any room to walk. There have been several large battles in the past few days – everyone is exhausted and all the space is taken.

He spots a gap, a bedroll with only one man on it, about two-thirds of the way back. He creeps across the room towards it, stepping on clothes, stepping on people. No one even stirs.

He flops down with a sigh, every muscle singing with relief at the relative softness of the bedroll. It’s only straw in a sack but he doesn’t remember the feather beds of Kings Landing ever feeling so good.

He’s aware of movement beside him – his bedmate rolls over to face him. He takes a breath – it’s not a man at all. Blue eyes, pale skin, blonde hair kissed orange by the firelight. Brienne of Tarth.

He understands now why this was the only space – even in this situation, propriety prevails. 

“Lady Brienne,” he says. “Forgive me, I – “

He moves to get up, but she shakes her head. He nods his gratitude and settles back down into the bedroll. “You are late back, Ser Jaime,” she whispers. “Did something go wrong on your scout?”

He blinks, surprised. He hasn’t seen her for the better part of a fortnight, save some nods across the battlefield or across the room during tactics meetings. He hadn’t thought she would know he was late or that he was out scouting for King Jon.

“Had to spend the night in a tree.” It’s true – separated from the rest of his men, he thought it to be the most prudent course of action until the coast was clear to get back. He had been there for some hours, freezing cold and saddle sore from straddling the thick branches. It had been terrifying too. Watching hundreds of the dead march beneath him, realising the scale of the battles to come.

“You’re hurt!” She looks at his hand – there is a thick, dark cut down the back of it, no longer bleeding, but ragged and ugly. She reaches for him, taking his hand in hers to examine the injury.

“A scratch,” he tells her. To tell the truth, he hadn’t noticed it until now. He has no idea how he did it.

She wrinkles her brow in disagreement, “We should find the maester.”

“Tomorrow,” he promises. 

She purses her lips, but nods. Gives him a half-smile and settles her head back down on the bedroll, clearly as weary as he. She says nothing, but her eyes don’t leave his. He – for some reason – can’t seem to take his from hers either. He realises she is still holding his hand in both of hers. It’s warm. Not soft, but gentle.

The warmth spreads, and suddenly it’s like her touch has lit his skin on fire – suddenly he’s all blood, pumping through his veins. He notices they are both breathing in the same rhythm. He notices her eyes are dark. Her lips are parted. Moist.  
This is dangerous. He should get up, but he can’t. He really can’t. That pumping blood has found somewhere to go, and his breeches won’t even begin to disguise the problem.

In the name of the Seven, it’s Brienne of Tarth – the wench, the horse-face, the towering beast of a woman, all muscle and angles and masculinity. 

But it’s Brienne. His Brienne. The warrior, the protector, his honour and his Oathkeeper. Her shy smile, her brilliant eyes, her soft rounded cheeks and little chin. Her heart is warm as sunlight on the ocean and she sees right through the Lannister, through the Kingslayer. She sees Jaime. Only Jaime.

He kisses her. Without a thought, with barely a breath, his lips are on hers. She makes a sound – a grunt of surprise, but she doesn’t push him off. She opens her mouth, tentative, tasting his tongue with a flick of her own. He pulls away to check she’s all right and she pulls him right back to her, kissing him so hard he thinks she’ll bruise him.

Another barrier broken – he’s kissed a woman who isn’t Cersei. He thought he’d feel shame and guilt, even after everything, but he doesn’t. He thought it would feel odd or unpleasant too – unfamiliar, unsafe.

In fact, it feels quite the opposite. Loving Cersei was a passive act, something beyond his control, something he didn’t get to choose. But loving Brienne, choosing to be a man she could love too … It has driven every choice he’s made since he lost his hand, pushing him forward, pushing him to her, pushing him to this moment. 

He loves Brienne. He loves her. Oh Gods, how hasn’t he seen this? Cersei was right - he really is the stupidest Lannister.

Brienne melts against him, crushes him in her solid arms. He tries to pull her on top of him, but he’s not quite strong enough, so settles for rolling on top of her.

His hand digs into her hair, holding her face against his. His mouth drinks from hers, endlessly, sucking her tongue greedily into his mouth. 

Beneath the rough blanket, their bodies start to thrust obscenely against each other, tight and then relaxed, tight and then relaxed. She’s so strong – the clench of her thighs alone is almost enough to bring him off in his breeches. He’s never been so aroused in his life - his cock is so hard it feels like stone covered with skin. 

He realises now how close they have been to this every time they have been together. Their love has been burning between them, barely concealed. No wonder they needed to be so formal. All it took was a touch, a look, and it’s lit a fire. He can’t stop, he can’t stop - 

He lifts up to yank his breeches down, and fumbles with hers – one-handed it’s not easy. But she gets one leg, one soft white muscled thigh, thick and generous and strong, out of her breeches and wraps it over his hips. Panting in her face, he angles himself and thrusts inside her, going all the way in in two thrusts. She hisses with pain and he flushes with shame – he had totally forgotten her maidenhead.

No matter – he couldn’t slow down if he wanted to. He buries his face in her neck and loses himself in the sweet scent of her – leather and sweat and Valyrian steel. She cradles him, legs and arms around him tight. Warm. Wet. He muffles his groans in her skin and thrusts, hard. Once, again. Deep. Tight. So tight. His hand slides into her tunic to grab her breast and then he’s lost. 

Not even a pretence at control – five thrusts and it’s all over. The pleasure bursts over him like a breaking wave and he lets go with a shamed groan, surging forward, again and again, spurting deeply inside her.

He lifts his head from her neck and she’s smiling. A loving smile. Maternal maybe? Maybe polite. But there is a tinge of disappointment in her eyes.

“Too much,” he gasps. How can he explain? This was embracing his new life, this was letting go of Cersei. This was becoming himself for the first time in his life. It was too much by far and he had no hope of keeping control.

He holds up a finger, instructing her to wait. He tugs at the blanket, bringing it high on her chest before disappearing beneath it. Beneath it’s warm and smells of sex – he finds her belly and drops soft kisses on the smooth muscles before nudging her thighs apart again with his face. 

Her gasp is loud and full of scandal when she realises his intention and somehow it’s the most adorable noise he has ever heard. Did she think no one would ever do this to her? Did she even know such a thing existed?

He is happy to be her teacher. She smells so good, rich and intoxicating - he buries his face and sucks at her sex with abandon. She arches up against him almost at once, hands clawing at his hair. He grasps her buttocks to hold her hard against his mouth, his nose pressed into her thick hair, his tongue exploring her cunt, learning her, learning what pleases her, what makes her shudder, what makes her cry out.

In just a few minutes, she is shoving herself so hard against his mouth that he thinks she will knock his front teeth out. Then, suddenly, she lets out a full-throated scream, head flung back, hips in the air, fists drumming the bedroll beside her.  
Jaime lifts his head from between her thighs to see a room full of soldiers staring at them. The blanket has long gone and his beard is soaked. All he can do is offer a rueful smirk to the dozens of men they have woken with their antics. 

They get a couple of irritable grunts and a “Keep it down, Kingslayer,” but nothing more. No one, it seems, is surprised.

Nevertheless, Brienne turns a beautiful shade of red, flushing from head to toe. She grabs for the blanket and tugs her tunic down, accidentally smacking him in the face in the process. He gets to his knees and relaces his breeches.

“Come on,” he whispers to her. “Let’s take a walk, my lady.”

Outside, on the battlements, the snow is falling, thick and fast. Brienne wraps her cloak about her shoulders, busying herself with the clasp. She also has her boots on the wrong feet and can’t, it seems, look him in the eye. 

“We definitely need to find the maester now,” she says at last. “I’ll need moon tea.”

“Yes, I – apologies. I should have spilled on your belly. I got a little carried away.”

She stops walking and turns back to him. Moonlight on her skin, snowflakes in her hair. A shy smile on her lips. “As did I.”

He smirks. “You should have warned me you were like to scream. Those poor men need their rest!”

She blushes and looks away again. “Something happened,” she whispers. “Some sort of – I thought it was – the Red Woman – shadow magic?”

“Shadow magic?!” He doesn’t understand at first, and then it dawns on him and he is unable to keep the smile from his face. She is beyond delightful. 

“I saw things,” she confides. “Shadows, flames, starbursts.”

“That’s – not unheard of,” he explains.

“Oh.”

“You have never – done this, even to yourself?”

She shakes her head.

He is dumbfounded. She was so responsive, so passionate – he can’t believe she has never so much as touched herself. No wonder she had exploded so quickly despite the urgent clumsiness of his rutting.

“I am not the most experienced, either,” he admits. “I’ll do something – sell my soul if I have to – for a bedchamber this evening. I promise, we’ll make up for lost time. For both of us.”

“You will do that – **that** – again?”

He takes her hand in his good one and squeezes it. “Lady Brienne, I will bend the knee to you all night if that is what you desire.”

He sees a smile on her face that he has never seen before. She looks almost … naughty. “That is what I desire,” she says. “Ser Jaime.”

He leans up to her and kisses her slowly, absolutely aching with love. It’s as if the floodgates have opened, now that he has realised his feelings, they are so acute they are almost painful.

They kiss for what feels like hours, huddled together in a small stone alcove, only pausing to whisper soft words of love or gaze into each other’s eyes. She wraps her thick cloak about them both to stay warm and at their belts, Widow’s Wail and Oathkeeper bump and clash against each other in time with the sway of their hips.

The sun comes up, wintery and watery, kissing Brienne’s skin and making her as golden as a Lannister. She doesn’t seem to be able to stop smiling and her eyes are radiant. He vows to himself that if they survive the Long Night, he will make her a Lannister. He knows already that no one will understand why she would want to be his wife, why someone as perfect and pure and honourable as she is would ever want to be with a man such as him.

It amuses him to think of his father, too, about his ambitions for the family name. Marrying Brienne, fathering children with her, will forever change what it means to be a Lannister. 

These are happy thoughts. Jaime is happy, in a way he has never before been happy in his life. There will be battles today, and many more to come. None of those things matter when he is in the arms of the woman he loves.  
As the sun rises, the courtyard below begins to fill with people once again, and their private nook becomes less private. With a last, lingering kiss, they part, with promises that they will find each other again this evening. 

He watches her go with a lump in his throat, and goes to see if he can bargain for that bedchamber.


	2. The Things I Did For Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyrion takes his hand. “I love you, brother. You know I do. I respect you enormously. But you’ve always been stupid when it comes to love.”

“You’re a fucking idiot.”

Jaime blinks in surprise. He’d gone to see his brother because he’d heard he was going to be out of the castle tonight and he was hoping to borrow Tyrion’s bedchamber in his absence. What he did not expect was a dressing down.

“I heard what happened last night. I think the whole castle is talking about it!”

“It was a bit impulsive, I grant you …”

“Impulsive? I’d call it a stupid risk. What were you thinking?”

“It just happened.”

“How does something like that “just happen”?”

“I would have thought you’d be better versed than me …”

“I know you have a lot to prove – “

“I wasn’t proving anything. I love Brienne. I’ve loved her for a long time. I was just … too much of a fucking idiot to realise.”

Tyrion doesn’t reply. He just looks at Jaime, his mouth agape, his brow furrowed. He takes a gulp of wine. “I was talking about your scouting mission. You went off without your men.”

“Oh. Yes. Yes, I … a lot of green boys - they were holding me back. I thought I’d get a better view if I headed for the treeline. A mistake as it turned out. But I’ve learned my lesson. It’s not easy to climb a tree with one hand.”

“All right. But let’s … let’s … go back a moment. You love Brienne? Brienne? The Maid of Tarth?”

“Well, the _former_ Maid of Tarth. Yes.”

“Oh.”

“So since you’re taking a trip out with your Dragon Queen this evening to survey the front lines, I was hoping I might make use of this rather nice bedchamber they’ve given you.”

“With Brienne of Tarth?”

“I wouldn’t mind staying down there in the Starks’ great hall. But you know how it is.” He drops his voice to a whisper. “She gets a bit loud.”

Tyrion held up a hand “I don’t think I want the details, thank you.”

“I thought it was only fair to warn you. Once she’s Lady Lannister you might want to choose a suite on the other side of Casterly Rock.”

“Lady Lannister? You’re going to marry her?”

“I doubt Father would have approved, Tarth being a lesser house and all, but it’s not like we’ll have our pick of the houses once the war is over. Likely most of those eligible women he was so keen on me marrying will be _long_ dead.”

“Jaime, stop.”

The look on Tyrion’s face does make him stop. He’s only joking around, teasing his brother and being flippant the way he always does, but Tyrion doesn’t look amused at all. If Jaime’s honest, he looks worried.

“I know you miss Cersei. You’ve had your heart ripped out of your chest, I understand. I know you’re … you’ve never been alone. But jumping in with both feet like a lovesick teenager …”

Jaime takes a physical step backwards. “No … no, you’ve got this wrong …”

Tyrion takes his hand. “I love you, brother. You know I do. I respect you enormously. But you’ve always been stupid when it comes to love.”

Jaime opens his mouth. Closes it again. “You think I’m going to go back to Cersei.”

“No. I didn’t say that. But Brienne is young. She’s true and honourable and idealistic, and you love like a man possessed. Is she really ready for that?”

Jaime doesn’t know what to say. He feels like he’s been kicked in the chest.

“Take the bedchamber,” Tyrion says. “But use it to talk to the girl. Make sure she knows what she’s getting into before you both get in over your heads.”

Jaime leaves, wandering aimlessly for a while before ending up in the kitchens. Several enormous kettles of soup are cooking on the range, even thinner and less meaty than the day before. He helps himself to a bowlful – if he doesn’t serve himself the Winterfell cooks tend to give him all the gristly bits or spit in his food. 

He eats it, morosely, in front of one of the enormous hearths in the great hall, trying to get some warmth back into his bones.

It’s not just the cold, though. It’s like his conversation with Tyrion has sucked the joy right out of him again. This morning he has been walking on air, full of renewed purpose and vigour, feeling like he had a future, feeling like he had something to survive the war for.

Now he feels like a fool. An old fool, too, throwing himself at Brienne, taking her maidenhead in a flurry of ill-thought passion without considering the reality.

He is too used to being a Lannister. And not just any Lannister either – Jaime Lannister, the handsome knight, Lord Tywin’s not-quite heir. He has always thought of himself as a prize.

What was it Brienne said at the Dragonpit? This war went beyond houses and honour and oaths – none of that pomp mattered any more. Leaving Cersei and joining the Northerners might have won him a smidgen of grudging respect, but he was still the Kingslayer. The sister-fucker. Cersei was pregnant with his child. What kind of prize was he really? For all his jests about moving to Casterly Rock with Brienne as his bride, he didn’t exactly have possession of his ancestral seat at the moment. He doubted the King in the North and the Dragon Queen would be like to give it back, either.

He remembers last night, after their hurried coupling in this very hall. Brienne's first thought had been to find a maester, drink some moon tea. He’d thought her wise – she was one of their best warriors, it would be foolish to hobble her by getting her with child. Now he wondered if there was more to it, if it wasn’t having a child, but having _his_ child that had frightened her.

That’s not even the worst of it, though. Tyrion is right – he does love like a fucking idiot. Blindly, all-consumingly, self-destructively. How many people did he kill because of Cersei? He can’t remember, but countless has a nice ring to it.

Can he trust himself to do the right thing? To know his limits, to love her without letting her consume him?

It is almost nightfall before he sees her again. She has been locked in a tactics meeting with the top echelon of command. Despite his experience, he isn’t quite trusted enough to join these yet. They’ve been punishing him, making him prove his commitment, by giving him the shitwork.

He sees her across the battlements, walking with Podrick and Lady Sansa. She’s looking around her though, looking for him. He catches her eye and holds up his golden hand. She smiles, sweet and shy. All around him, soldiers are lighting the braziers for the eventide, and the castle begins to take on a warm glow, flickering orange against the grey and the white.

He sees Brienne bid Sansa goodnight, and makes her way over to him. She bows her head to, once. “Good evening, Ser Jaime,” she says.

“Lady Brienne.”

“Did you have any luck in finding us a bedchamber?”

He is a little surprised she is so direct, but the darkness of her eyes, the moistness of her lips, the quickness of her breath suggests she has been anticipating this all day. It seems he has awoken a voracious beast.

“As a matter of fact, I did. Turns out my brother is away from the castle tonight.”

Her smile widens. “I’m very pleased to hear it. I must eat, and I will join you in his chambers after?”

“I look forward to it.” He takes her hand and kisses it, delighting in her immediate blush.

He heads straight there, head spinning. Being near her, touching her, kissing her hand, seeing her beautiful eyes … it’s inflamed him all over again. This is what Tyrion was talking about. He should slow this down, talk to her, court her gently, but he can’t. He wants to throw himself at her, fall into bed with her and pledge his heart and soul and his life to her. What is wrong with him?

Tyrion’s chamber has been left in good order, no doubt on his orders. The sheets have been freshly changed and a fresh flagon of wine waits by the bed. Candles have been lit and there are even some dried roses is a vase.

Jaime sits down on the bed to unbuckle his sword belt and take off his boots. He contemplates whether to take the golden hand off or leave it on, but if he’s honest he hates the thing – it’s uncomfortable and heavy and Lannister gaudy. He tucks it away with his boots.

As he does so, there is a quiet, almost tentative knock on the door. Jaime starts. He races to the door and pulls it open to let Brienne inside.

“That was a quick meal,” he remarks.

She’s already unbuckling Oathkeeper. “Decided I’m not hungry.”

Before her sword belt has hit the floor, they are in each other’s arms, kissing.

She tastes amazing – utterly amazing. He’s drunk on the taste of her already, heady and weak-kneed. He pulls her backwards to the huge bed, pulling at the fastenings on her clothes, yanking at his own breeches, painfully hard already.  
She digs her hand into his smallclothes and grasps his cock in her rough, calloused palm. Caresses him. The sensation sends a shudder of pleasure right through him and he has to fight to keep from squirting his seed into her hand immediately.

The back of his knees hit the bed and she pushes him back onto the pillows, breaking their kiss for an agonising moment to kick her breeches across the room and straddle him. His cock juts proudly upwards from his open fly and he tries to grasp her hips with his good hand to angle and impale her on it, but she bats him away and carries on crawling up the bed, towards his face, towards his mouth.

He’s happy to oblige, wriggling downwards on the pillows to get his chin between her legs. She sheds her tunic, and her magnificent, muscular body is completely, wonderfully, beautifully naked above him. 

Their eyes meet, hers dark with passion and anticipation, her hips gently undulating in his face and her teats heaving above him. For a moment, Jaime struggles to keep his composure. Tears prick and burn his eyes, and a lump forms in his throat.  
He buries his face in her cunt before she catches him weeping at the sight of her, and then she’s too distracted to care.

He builds her up much more slowly this time, teasing and tormenting her with his tongue until she’s a writhing, helpless heap of limbs, begging him for release. Despite the crisp winter air she has a fine sheen of sweat on her belly and breasts by the time he gives in to her, lavishing attention where she needs it most for just long enough to bring her over the edge.

She collapses, incoherent, onto the bedsheets, sighing and mumbling and praising him to the old gods and the new. He mounts her and takes her, sliding easily into her warm, wet depths in one fat slide.

She takes his face in both her hands and kisses him slowly and languidly while he fucks her, slowly at first, then building to a pace where they are almost animalistic, grunting and panting into each other’s faces as drives between her legs.  
Suddenly, she grasps his behind and arches stiffly beneath him, face contorted into a grimace of pleasure so intense he thinks she may die from it.

He spills his seed gazing into her eyes, moaning his pleasure softly into her mouth. His body sings with it, bright and sharp, long after his balls have stopped pumping and his cock has started to soften.

Afterwards, she pours herself a little of the wine and drinks it resting back on the multitude of pillows. He lies with his arms around her waist, his head on her naked belly.

“I don’t really like wine,” she complains, and puts her glass back on the table.

The fingers of his good hand trace the lines of her body, up and down, up and down. The muscle in her thigh, the line of her hip-bone, around her bellybutton, up to her nipple. Down again. His lips linger on her skin. She’s warm and smells of sex.

This is absolute bliss. He can count on the fingers of his golden hand the amount of times he and Cersei had dared to spare the time to fuck naked. To lie together afterwards like this would have been a dangerous folly.

He longed for it though, of course he did. There was a point in time where he would have killed every man, woman and child in Westeros to be alone with Cersei.

Thinking those thoughts brings back Tyrion’s doubts. Despite his brother’s warning, here he was, in with both feet, in over his head again. When she walked through the door it didn’t give him so much as pause. That scares him.

He’s suddenly aware that Brienne is looking at him. His hand has stopped moving on her body and she’s looking at him with a furrowed brow.

“Is something the matter?” she asks, her voice strong and clear.

Because he can tell her anything, he decides to tell her. “My brother has concerns about how quickly this has gone.”

She purses her lips. “Do you share those concerns?”

“Apparently not.” He sucks a breath between his teeth. “But he pointed out I don’t have the best judgement when it comes to romantic relationships.”

“Does it matter?” 

“I don’t know. I’ve killed for love. Maimed people. The Stark boy...”

“That scares you.”

“It does. Of course it does.”

“Would you kill for me? Maim people? Innocent people?”

It feels like a slap. An accusation. But he has to be honest. “Without hesitation.”

She wraps her arms around his back, her compelling eyes strong on his, lit by the candlelight. “I don’t think your brother knows you,” she says. “Not like I do.”

Jaime opens his mouth to protest – it’s Tyrion! Tyrion, his brother – but he stops himself. She’s right. When he’s with Tyrion, he’s a Lannister. He’s had to be. He’s arrogant and cocky, full of jokes and guarded. Always. He’s only Jaime with Brienne. 

Brienne continues. “He certainly doesn’t know me. If I wanted somebody dead, don’t you think I could do it myself?” 

He has to smile at that. She has a point.

“I know you can’t trust yourself. I understand that, I understand your fear of slipping back to being the man you were. But you can trust me. I will never ask you to do anything, to be anything, that is less than honourable.”

“But I love you so much. Too much, already. Beyond all reason … it’s the way the Gods made me.”

“Then I will be your reason. I hope you know me well enough to know that I will never abuse that love. I will return it, tenfold, unconditionally, until the day I meet the Stranger.”

He’s struck dumb. Can only gaze at her, open-mouthed, the way he had that first day of their journey to Kings Landing, the first time he saw her fight. He loves the way she takes him by surprise.

He climbs up her body to kiss her, lazily tangling his tongue with hers, taking all the time in the world to enjoy her. He’s hard again almost immediately, and she flips him over so he is the one sitting on the pillows.

She takes him inside her, straddling his lap and sinking slowly down on his engorged cock. She sits very still, pinning him with her weight so he can feel every glorious, silky ripple of her cunt around him while she gazes into his eyes.

He’s ready to spill almost immediately - another consequence of those rushed couplings with Cersei - he’s never learned control. He busies himself mouthing and sucking her teats instead, enjoying how he can almost get a whole one in his mouth.

His chest hurts with love, but it doesn’t matter. She is right. There are no terrible consequences to loving Brienne this hard. If he loses himself, if she consumes him, he can only become a better man. He trusts her. He adores her. He was a fucking idiot to have ever doubted that is a good thing.

They are both straining against each other now, hard and powerful, mouths locked in a punishing kiss, arms tight around one another as if they are trying to crush themselves into each other’s bodies.

Brienne is crying out with every thrust, building, building, until at last she comes apart in his arms with a huge scream of joy. The sound of her pleasure brings him over the edge too and his climax seems to last forever – his soul leaves his body along with his seed, pumped gladly into her.

Afterwards, he’s weak as a kitten in her arms, taking her kisses, fighting for breath, for words, fighting his tears.

Absurdly, he wishes he had never gone back to Kings Landing after Harrenhall. He wishes he had kept going with Brienne, losing themselves in the countryside of Westeros, maybe even getting on a boat somewhere. This war would still have happened, the dead would still have come for them at some point, but they would have had those years. They would have had those years together.

He can have it tonight though. One night to sleep entwined with her in their borrowed bedchamber, one night of love so pure and perfect he can almost feel like he deserves to be alive.

He rolls her over to spoon against her and falls into a deep and dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As requested ... chapter two!
> 
> Thank you everyone for my warm welcome into the fandom and for making me feel so at home. I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as the last.


	3. The Wars to Come

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She gives him a soft little smile, like the one she gave at the gates of King’s Landing on his homecoming. “We should do this again,” she says.
> 
> Jaime stupidly agrees."

It starts with a flower.

A camp follower passes it to Jaime as he’s riding back to his tent after a long, bloody day on the battlefield. She shoves it between the thumb and finger of his golden hand and he accepts it before he’s even had a chance to register what it is.

Back in his tent, he sees it is actually made from paper, ingeniously folded in a hundred different directions to form petals, and then twisted to make a stem. It’s very clever. Very beautiful.

It gives him an idea.

He sticks his head out of his tent and yells for his squire. The lad, some highborn dolt from one of the Northern houses, is asleep on a pile of salt sacks, a wineskin in his hand. Jaime’s wineskin. He comes running at Jaime’s shout, almost slamming into his armour. 

“Find Podrick Payne,” he tells the lad.

It’s almost an hour before Podrick appears, during which time Jaime has shucked his armour, bathed and washed the mud and blood from his hair and beard.

“Did you send for me, my Lord? Your squire’s message wasn’t too clear.”

Jaime is polishing Widow’s Wail, seated at his table. “I did, Pod. I need you to deliver something for me.”

He stands, and passes Podrick the flower. “I’d like you to give this to Lady Brienne.”

Podrick nods. “Of course, My Lord. Is it from the Wildling?”

“What?”

“The Wildling, Ser. Tormund Giantsbane? He’s erm … shown an interest in my Lady.”

Jaime feels the colour drain from his face. “Has he.”

Podrick seems to sense that he’s said the wrong thing. Gapes for a second, his mouth flapping uselessly. “Yes, my Lord. Not that my Lady – she doesn’t return his affections. At least I don’t think she does.”

“Well, make sure to tell her it’s not from him. Tell her it’s from me – to replace the one she lost in my bed.”

As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Jaime regrets them. Podrick flushes almost as brightly as Brienne would, his eyes as wide as saucers. He nods and scarpers with the flower, as fast as his short legs can carry him.

Jaime sinks back onto his chair. Curse his stupid jealousy, curse it to the seven hells. He and Brienne had made a pact before they had left Winterfell – a pact that they would be discreet, and now look what he has done. He’s outright told her squire that he’s taken her maidenhead. 

Brienne is going to be mortified. He’ll be very lucky if she doesn’t come over to his tent and gut him with Oathkeeper.

He’s been lonely. There’s the truth of it. No one talks to him much - they mistrust the Kingslayer. Despise him.

At night he’s surrounded by the sounds of his men fucking - maybe the camp followers, maybe each other – and it makes him miss Brienne. He misses her so much. 

He’s tried closing his eyes and using his hand, pretending she’s there on top of him, making the sounds the women are making, pretending they are her, but it really doesn’t work. None of them scream like she does, and his clumsy left hand is no substitute for her delicious, soft, warm, wet cunt.

He gets up to pour himself a cup of wine – he’s torturing himself thinking of her cunt. Nothing can come of it but a painful erection he hasn’t got the heart to deal with.

Suddenly, Podrick is back. Entering his tent unannounced – Jaime has to sit back down rapidly, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees to hide the prominent tenting in his breeches.

It takes him a moment to register – Podrick is holding something out to him. A piece of paper. 

Jaime takes it. Podrick leaves. 

The paper is folded, twice, and sealed rather inelegantly with wax. The seal is Sansa Stark’s but he doesn’t think it’s from her. He pulls it open.

_In the clearing by the Weirwood tree_

It says. Brienne’s handwriting.

_The hour of the bat._

His heart is in his mouth. She’s not angry. She’s not angry and she wants to see him!

He knows the place she means – it’s a little way back into the forest behind them, far enough away from the camp to be discreet, but close enough that he can get there without anyone noticing that he is gone. Not that anyone would care what the Kingslayer does.

He goes around the rest of the day with a huge, ridiculous grin on his face. Finding magic in everything, wanting to be kind to everyone he sees. He spends an hour just marvelling at the beauty of the snowflakes falling on the mud outside his tent. He helps a soldier with his injured horse, helps his squire clean his boots. He even gives away half his evening meal to a skinny little beggar urchin who is hanging round the camp.

As the hour of the bat approaches, Jaime picks out his best and cleanest clothing. Dons his armour, just in case, buckles Widow’s Wail to his hip.

Outside, those who have avoided death today are drinking and carousing. No one pays Jaime any heed. He slips through the camp and into the woods without a single glance from anyone.

The night is dark and the snow is thick. The clearing is deadly silent. He can see the faint glow of the fires from the camp, but little else. They light the weirwood up in an eerie orange, its leaves blood red and glowing.

Brienne arrives ten minutes later, also dressed in her armour, Oathkeeper’s hilt poking from her thick grey fur-trimmed cloak. Her bright blonde hair is brushed back, framing her face like the most resplendent crown. 

She looks different than the way she did when they first met, different even than she had at Winterfell. She’s straighter backed, higher-headed. She’s not wearing that permanent mistrustful scowl. A consequence of being in the Starks’ inner circle, he thinks, consulted and included. She’s got respect for the first time in her life. 

They both look at each other across the clearing for the longest moment, breathing hard. Then she smiles.

They all but run at each other, coming together in the middle of the clearing with a crunch of armour and a tangle of swordbelts. Their lips find each other’s and they have their tongues in each other’s mouths before either of them have spoken a word.

His good hand cups her face, thumb stroking her cheek as they kiss. One of hers is in his beard, the other on his waist.

They break to grin at each other. Kiss, and kiss again.

“I miss you,” he whispers.

“Did you tell my squire you’d deflowered me?” she asks. 

He does an exaggerated wince. “It might have slipped out.” 

“Slipped out?” She shoves him hard, against a tree.

“Forgive me, my Lady. How can I make it up to you?”

Her eyes narrow, gleaming in the firelight from the camp below. Her mouth twists into a smile he can only describe as _wicked._

“You can get on your knees and get that smart mouth on my cunt, Kingslayer,” she hisses.

Jaime feels his mouth drop open – what has happened to Brienne of Tarth? Nonetheless, he’s on his knees in the slush and mud and yanking on her breeches before she’s had the chance to draw another breath.

She’s hot and engorged and very very wet – clearly he’s not the only one who has been anticipating this for hours. She groans deep in her throat when he gets his tongue on her, grabbing at his hair with her gloved hands, pressing her back against the tree she just threw him on.

The clearing is filled with the sounds of pure carnality – his slurping tongue, her panting, her grunting, the rasp of her armour against the tree. It’s not the most comfortable thing he’s ever done – his knees are freezing, his jaw is aching and her breastplate keeps poking him in the eye, but the look on her face is worth it all. Her flushed cheeks, her open mouth, her eyes screwed tightly shut. She gets a boot up on the tree trunk so she can thrust into his face.

She calls out to the Gods, each of them in turn, begging them to save her from the torment of his tongue. She gets halfway through the Seven before her pleas turn into screams and she comes undone at his attentions, letting loose a little gush into his beard.

He staggers to his feet, pulling at the laces on his own breeches and planting a kiss on her mouth to share the flavour of her cunt with her. She takes it eagerly, and hisses when he pushes himself inside her.

He has to appreciate the perfection of this – fucking while standing isn’t half as difficult when his partner is taller than he. She curls a big leg over his hip and he pounds into her with abandon, grateful for the warmth of her broad hands on his frozen arse.

“Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,” she breathes in his ear, perfectly in time with his thrusts. He’s more than happy to oblige.

He likes this new, foul-mouthed Brienne, he decides. She excites him.

He grips her hip and doubles his pace, grunting into her neck. She suddenly screams again, grabbing at the tree above her head, grabbing at him. He gives a last, brutal thrust and spends himself in a bloom of hot white pleasure, deep, deep inside her. They cling to each other, panting, shuddering, kissing.

Eventually, they pull apart with a slippery rush of fluid, nothing to hand but the wide red leaves of the weirwood to clean themselves with. Jaime’s pretty sure the Old Gods wouldn’t mind.

“I’ve got a splinter in my arse,” she complains, which totally destroys the mood, but gets them both laughing as he tries to help her pull it out. 

“Gods but I wish I could take you back to my tent tonight,” he whispers as they are lacing up their breeches once again. “I miss you so much.”

She gives him a soft little smile, like the one she gave at the gates of King’s Landing on his homecoming. “We should do this again,” she says.

Jaime stupidly agrees.

The next few days keep poor Podrick very busy. At first it’s just a few notes, love notes really, soppy missives signed with a press of her lips in a borrowed lipstick.

Then it’s packages – a couple of lemon cakes for him from Sansa’s dining table, a bright red heart for her, cut from the leather of his tunic.

Next she sends him a set of her smallclothes, still warm and moist and smelling of her delectable cunt. He sends them back twenty minutes later, soaked with a hot splash of his seed.

It degenerates further still – as evening falls that night he steals a very long exotic vegetable from the Starks’ kitchen tent, wraps it up and sends it to her with a request to treat it as she would his cock if he were there. It comes back warm and wet and slightly mushed – as per his demand, it has been very well fucked indeed.

The next day, he gets a letter before the sun is even fully up – a very tired and irritable Podrick pokes him in the ear with it as he sleeps. It’s an invitation to join Brienne, then and there, in one of the fields on the other side of the camp.

He’s up and dressed and riding out there in under ten minutes.

They couple frantically in the six-foot grass, Brienne astride him, riding his aching cock like a woman possessed, the horses whickering softly as they watch.

He rides back after with a soaked and filthy shirt and breeches – a nice scrubbing job for his irritating squire, he thinks.

That afternoon, Podrick comes again with an invitation to a storage tent, little used and stacked with straw and sacks of horse feed.

At the back, it’s dark and private, and they waste no time divesting each other of their clothes and getting their mouths between one another’s legs. She’s artless and clumsy – too much teeth and too much tongue, but he loves it nonetheless. She swallows his seed with an audible gulp while he tries to stifle his grunts in the wet depths of her cunt.

That evening again, Podrick throws a note through the flap of his tent. 

Brienne has chanced upon a little burned out hut in the woods, spread out furs and blankets for them, lit a fire. This time they take their time, naked skin on naked skin in the firelight, dreamily kissing while they slowly fuck. 

It’s agony to part from her afterwards, agony to climb into his tiny bed alone. His dreams are full of her, though – her hands, her mouth, her astonishing eyes. He’s smitten, he realises. In right over his head.

She’s in his tent the next morning, formal and stiff and dressed in full armour, Oathkeeper gleaming on her hip. By her side, Podrick struggles to hide his smirk.

“Ser Jaime, I have been charged with a scouting mission this morning,” she tells him. “I’d like to request your help.”

“I’d be honoured to help you, Lady Brienne.”

Podrick lets out a snort of laughter – tries to cover it by coughing. Brienne grimaces.

She steps out of the tent to let Jaime don his armour, and when he’s done, they ride off together.

“So is this a real scouting mission?” he asks when they are well away from camp.

“Yesterday one of the rangers thought they saw a dead giant moving through the woods,” she tells him. “Queen Daenerys, King Jon – they’re concerned it could be the prelude to an attack. They have come to understand our position is quite vulnerable at the moment.”

He keeps his mouth shut, but he’d tried to warn them of that when they’d picked the camp’s location. He’s by far the most experienced field commander they have, and he’s set up hundreds of war camps through the years, by himself and with his father. But they’ve insisted on keeping him isolated and humiliated and out of the inner circle of command. He’s accepted it because he knows he has a lot to atone for, a lot of Lannister to get past, but they could be approached unawares from several different angles where they are, and their scouting parties are far too few.

“However,” Brienne continues. “Even if the ranger was not mistaken, it’s quite likely the giant is long gone by this morning, wouldn’t you agree? Though we’d better take a long time having a very thorough search.”

He smirks. “I think that would be the wisest course of action.”

“Where do you think an undead giant might go?” she asks, with an innocent eyebrow raised.

“It would probably head deep into the forest,” he says, pretending to ruminate carefully.

“That’s probably where we should go then too,” she smiles. Pulls her horse into a trot and leaves him behind.

He catches her further down the road, where she’s stopped to let her horse have a drink in an only partially-frozen stream. He pulls up alongside her, reaches for her. But she spurs her horse on again with a dirty little chuckle that inflames his blood and gets it all pumping to his groin.

Her horse is fast, and he, of course, was given one of the oldest on the camp, so she has no problem repeatedly outrunning him. After an hour, she gives up little kisses when he catches her, brief touches of her tongue and sighs of lust into his mouth before she spurs her horse on again and Jaime is forced to give chase.

By the time the sun has reached its zenith in the sky, she has loosened her breeches enough to let him slip his hand inside while he kisses her, cold fingers on warm flesh which makes her shiver with delight. 

This time she pulls his cock out too, uncovering him to the wintry air for a second before leaning down in her saddle to take him into the heat of her mouth. He groans, and she rides off with another throaty laugh, leaving him exposed and throbbing hard.

Riding is getting painful. He decides this little game needs to end. But he rides for twenty minutes without sight of her, and starts to worry that he really has lost her. Then, suddenly, he sees her up ahead at the next ford, wrapped in her cloak, grinning over her shoulder. She lets him ride up beside her, then opens her cloak.

Beneath its fur-trimmed warmth, Brienne has stripped herself naked.

He sees her armour stuffed in her saddlebags, Oathkeeper strapped across her horse’s rump.

“You must be cold, my Lady,” he says when he’s remembered how to talk. 

She looks him in the eye. Then very slowly, very carefully, clambers off her horse and onto his so she is facing him on his saddle.

“Keep me warm, Ser Jaime,” she whispers in the deepest, most lustful voice he has ever heard her use. “Make me warm.”

They had been tied up like this once, he remembers. Face to face on the back of a horse, after they had taken his hand. Mocked and called “The Lovers” to scorn and humiliate them both.

Now she wraps her endless legs around his waist, leans back to grind her cunt against his cock. The Lovers indeed.

He opens his mouth to speak, but only a groan comes out. He frees his cock and grasps her hip - impales her in one long delicious stroke. Her head goes back on her long neck with a deep moan of satisfaction.

“No sudden screams,” he warns her through his gritted teeth. “If this horse bolts, we’re going to get hurt.”

He lets his hand explore her body in all its naked glory - the lines of bone and muscle, her tendons and her veins. Her scars. Her imperfections. Her beauty too – the thick slick hair of her cunt, the pale pink of her nipples, bunched with cold. 

She shudders as he fucks her, breath coming in quick, excited pants. Leans back to squeeze her eyes shut, leans forward to watch his cock slide in and out.

His thighs slap against her thighs, his hand tightens, shifts on her leg, tightens again. He can feel himself grimace, can hear himself gasp. Beneath them, his horse shifts, but stands patiently, strong and stalwart and seemingly unphased by the extra weight, the unfamiliar movements. Jaime vows to feed him an extra crunchy carrot when they get back to camp – he’s a trooper.

Brienne heeds his warning and manages to swallow her screams when she reaches her climax, but she bites her lip bloody with the effort.

She looks remarkable in the throes of climax - ugly, carnal, bestial, but ethereal and beautiful at the same time. Jaime can’t hold himself back any more – he frees his cock from her with a grunt and spends himself in hard thick pulses on her thighs and belly. Collapses, panting, in the saddle.

Her breasts heave, her eyes closed. Legs splayed around his body. The puddles of his seed steam slightly in the cold.

A shadow passes over her skin. At first, he thinks it’s the shadow of the trees above them, but it’s too big, too black, too dark. He looks up to see Brienne’s eyes go wide. Staring at the sky.

Above them is a dragon, flying directly overhead.

It’s not one of theirs. And it’s flying south. Away from the camp.

“Oh no …” breathes Brienne. “Oh no.”

She jumps from his horse, tangles in her own cloak and falls to her knees in the snow. Dashes for her horse, for the saddlebags, for her armour. He gets down to help her, though he’s not much help with his clumsy left hand. 

By this time, the smell has reached them - the smell of burning, the smell of death. Brienne straps Oathkeeper to her hip again and leaps back onto her horse. She’s off and away without a word, without a glance. He can’t hope to catch her.

He gets to camp an hour later - what used to be their camp. Now it’s a blackened, twisted landscape of horror – smoking earth, burning tents, burned bodies, bodies hacked to pieces, bodies all but shredded. In the middle of it all, Brienne, the only living thing.

She’s screaming Podrick’s name, screaming Sansa’s, Arya’s, Jon’s, Daenerys’. Turning bodies over, trying to find something identifying. Anything at all.

He rides to her. Dismounts. Goes to her and tries to comfort her.

She hits him. A punch in the mouth that sits him square on his rump in the mud. “Don’t touch me!” she screams. 

He gets to his feet. Spits blood. “We have to go,” he tells her.

“Go?! Where are we going to go?”

“I don’t know. But the sun’s going down and we don’t have time to burn these bodies.”

A look of something – disgust, despair, horror, goes over her face. He thinks she is going to hit him again. She’s breathing hard. But then she nods.

“I’ll find a tent,” he says. “Something not too damaged. You get food. Everything we can carry. Everything we can find. As quick as we can.”

She nods again. Grabs her horse by the reins.

Jaime runs, trying to ignore the carnage around him, focussing on the twisted, trashed remnants of the tents. At the edge by the woods, there are some unburned ones, although it looks as though many of them have been torn and trampled.

Taking them apart with only one good hand is tricky and time consuming, but he gathers enough unbroken pieces to make a decent shelter. He finds bedding too – blankets, furs, a bedroll, enough to keep them warm.

His horse stands uncomplaining while he loads him up. Jaime mounts up and rides off to find Brienne.

She’s done well too - her saddlebags are full and bulging with food. She gets on her horse without a word, her face dirty, tear-streaked, ugly with rage and grief and blame.

The sky is blood-red and water pale - streaks of both. They ride away together, into the forest, into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long wait on this chapter, got a little stuck as to a direction! Many thanks to CaptainTarthister for the inspiration and the emergency read-through. If you could gift a chapter this one would be for her.
> 
> Can you gift a chapter? (AO3 noob)


	4. No Chance and No Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Probably he should agonise over it, he thinks. Decide whether it’s the right time, if she’s truly in the right frame of mind. Maybe he should make sure he’s not taking advantage of a poor, vulnerable woman. But those are concerns that smart men like Tyrion have, men like Ned Stark and Jon Snow. Men who understand consequences, who act rationally and honourably. 
> 
> Jaime, fortunately, is too stupid to worry about those things."

 

 

“There’s nothing we could have done,” Jaime says for the thousandth time.

Brienne sits by the fire, skinning a skinny little rabbit, wrapped in her cloak and wearing a grim scowl. She doesn’t reply.

“We would have died with everyone else.”

She throws her skinning knife down. It lands an inch from his boot. “ _That’s_ what we should have done,” she growls. “We should have died with everyone else.”

“Why?”

She scoffs. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“Because I have shit for honour?”

“Yes,” she spits. “Because you have shit for honour.”

If she thinks that will hurt him, she’s sadly mistaken. Being the Kingslayer for two decades has gifted him with something of a thick skin. He passes her skinning knife back to her with a gentle hand. “I think survival is more important than honour right now.”

“What are you planning to do? Start the human race all over again, just the two of us?”

Half a dozen ribald quips form in his mouth, but he manages to swallow them. “We don’t know that they’re all dead,” he says. “There were no dead dragons, and there was no time to count the bodies. Daenerys could have rescued people. Lots of people.”

“We could have helped to rescue people too.”

“They sent us out on a scouting mission. Even if we hadn’t been _together_ – even if we had _actually_ been scouting, we wouldn’t have been there.”

“We shouldn’t have been doing it,” she hisses. “Rutting like animals. We were out of control.”

“Half that camp rutted like animals every night. Starting with Daenerys and Jon Snow. Why shouldn’t we?”

“ _Queen Daenerys_ and _King Jon_?” She looks genuinely shocked.

“Plainly. And for months. Before us.”

Brienne makes a face.

“If you had died in that camp a chaste and perfect maid and I as Cersei’s reject, would that have been more honourable? Why do they deserve their chance to love, yet we do not?”

She doesn’t have an answer for that. She ties and spits the rabbit in silence. He lies back on the grass and stares up at the miserable grey evening sky. It’s almost as depressing as she is right now.

They have been running for four days. Navigating by the sun and the stars, headed for the sea. He’s not sure what he plans to do once they reach the coast, but he knows it’s safer than the mountains and the forests. He has some damn fool notion of finding a boat, sailing away, back to Lannisport and trying to hole up at Casterly Rock.

Once spring breaks, he can picture the survivors opening up the gates and finding him and Brienne entwined in the Lord’s chambers, with a gaggle of golden-haired children running around the keep.

A stupid fantasy. But better than the cold, grim reality, which was that sooner or later they would chance upon a group of the dead bigger than they could fight and then they would likely watch each other be torn to pieces.

While the rabbit cooks, Brienne goes off to tend to the horses. It’s embarrassing how little Jaime can do around the camp with only one hand – he can’t chop wood, he can’t put the tent up, he can’t catch or prep their food. Even turning the spit is awkward and clumsy. She doesn’t seem to mind, though, it gives her the opportunity to sulk and brood some more.

He gets up to fetch himself a blanket from the tent – the sun has gone down now and even by the fire it’s perishingly cold. There was a fresh fall of snow that afternoon and it’s packed tight beneath him, freezing his arse cheeks through his armour and breeches. He turns to ask if she would to get warm beside him, when he notices she’s nowhere to be seen.

Panic takes him – he drops the blanket and pulls Widow’s Wail from its sheath, eyes scanning the horizon frantically. He sees the horses have been brushed and hobbled for the night, but she hasn’t come back. He rushes over to where the animals are tied, trying to see her bootprints in the dark. Sure enough, he spots them all around the horses, deeper and bigger than his.

He follows their trail, round the back of the horses and to where the feed sack and saddlebags are stashed. Then they head off over the crest of the next hill. He heads that way too, his heart in his mouth. Did something attract her attention? Did she go over here to check it out, only to be attacked, or to fall, or slip on the ice? Why didn’t she call out to him?

He follows her route over the hill and down into a valley, utterly dark now save for the light of the moon on the snow. He ducks around a bush, sword out. She’s there – squatting down with her breeches around her ankles, taking a shit. She jumps out of her skin when she sees him, scrabbling madly for Oathkeeper.

“It’s just me!” he yells.

“What are you doing?!”

“I couldn’t see you!”

 “Do you mind?!” she shouts, using her hand to indicate her state of undress. Her white legs, bare in the moonlight, her round arse …

“Oh. Yes.” He turns and flees back to the camp, his cheeks aflame. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen a woman take a shit before. He doubts Cersei ever shat in her life.

He slumps back down in front of the cooking rabbit, gives it another turn.

After a minute, Brienne stomps back to join him, her face a vivid shade of scarlet in the light of the flickering flames. She sits down opposite him and yanks one of her boots off. Starts scrubbing at it furiously.

“You made me step in my own shit.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I _think_ I can look after myself for a couple of minutes without you standing guard outside the privy door.”

He snorts. “I just took you _completely_ unawares!”

Her blush goes dark with fury.

“I apologise, all right? I didn’t intend to violate your privacy, my Lady. I was _worried_ about you.”

She says nothing, but continues to scrub at her boot. Between them the fire spits and cracks.

He turns the rabbit, his mouth watering at the smell of the meat. It’s the first thing they have caught since they left the camp, the first thing they have seen alive. The provisions she scavenged from the camp are feeding them adequately for now, but they do nothing to please his belly.

They eat the rabbit in silence, chewing and slurping and licking the scrawny bones clean. The meal only serves to warm them briefly – it starts to snow again, thick and fast, and even the small thicket of trees they are camping under doesn’t help to keep the chill at bay.

“I’ll take first watch,” Brienne tells him.

He nods – she doesn’t look as though she can sleep right now.

Jaime goes into the tent and packs himself in blankets and furs, so tightly that only his nose remains exposed.

Outside, he hears her stomping around, tending the fire, pacing to keep warm. He can imagine her in the grim glow of the firelight, brow furrowed, scowling at every shadow.

Suddenly, the tent flap opens, letting a gust of freezing snow fill the space. He sits up, reflexively going for Widow’s Wail with his right hand – his stump bumps uselessly against the hilt. He grabs it with his left and springs to his feet.

“Trouble?” he gasps.

She says nothing. He can’t see her face – the light of the fire is behind her, throwing her into pitch black silhouette, and for a moment, he’s terrified that she’s been killed and risen as a wight.

“Brienne?”

“Fuck me,” she says.

“What?”

“You heard.”

“Now?”

She nods. “Please. Please, Jaime.”

Something about her begging reminds him of Cersei, and an involuntary shudder goes down his spine.

“Why?”

She shrugs with a clatter of her armour. “Need to feel – feel something good.”

He lets out a sigh. Probably he should agonise over it, he thinks. Decide whether it’s the right time, if she’s truly in the right frame of mind. Maybe he should make sure he’s not taking advantage of a poor, vulnerable woman. But those are concerns that smart men like Tyrion have, men like Ned Stark and Jon Snow. Men who understand consequences, who act rationally and honourably.

Jaime, fortunately, is too stupid to worry about those things. He smirks and holds a hand out to her. “Better make it quick. We’re going to freeze our arses off in here.”

He sees her shoulders sag with relief, and immediately her hands go to the fastenings on her armour. He goes to her, helps as best he can, planting soft kisses along her jawline while he pulls at the knots and the plates.

Then they stand together - kissing, touching, shivering with the cold. Stroking each other with icy fingers, kissing each other with chattering teeth. He pulls her to the pile of furs and blankets that he just emerged from.

Underneath, it’s pitch black, but at least it’s warmer. Brienne settles on top of him, legs wide across his lap. Somehow, their mouths find each other, a wet tangle of tongue and teeth and breath, her hair falling forward.

Her hands delve into his breeches – he hisses as her icy fingers encircle his warm, stiffening cock. But the cold of her feels good, makes him throb and ache and swell, until he’s thrusting helplessly into her palm. He wriggles his own hand into her smallclothes, getting two fingers deep in her warm wet cunt.

She groans into his mouth and sits up to shuck her tunic, letting another blast of freezing air under the blankets.

He would give away Casterly Rock right now to have another hand to put on her teats, he thinks. His stump is awkward and embarrassing in bed, good for nothing. Nothing kills the mood faster than being mauled by a hand that isn’t there.

He keeps it neutrally against her back, ducking his head to lick and suck her nipples instead. They are stiff and taut from the cold and she sighs when his hot mouth envelops one and then the other. Grinds her hips harder against his hand.

The trapped air beneath the blankets takes on the scent of musk, of lust. Brienne’s vigorous grunts fill Jaime’s ears even as her teats fill his mouth.

“Oh Gods,” she breathes. “Oh Gods.”

The Gods aren’t here, he thinks. Not now. The snow, the cold, the dead – that’s all there is.

She pulls away to slide her breeches down her hips – he helps. She gets one leg out and rolls beneath him, thrusting herself up at him expectantly.

He can’t raise an eyebrow at her in the pitch darkness, so the effect may be lost, but he says “Mouth or cock?”

“Just fuck me, Jaime. Make me come.”

He thrusts into her without further ado, right to the hilt. She lets out a noise that is halfway between a squeak and a grunt.

“Fuck me,” she says again. “Fuck me hard.”

“Lift your legs,” he mutters. Throat thick and voice strained. “Round my back.”

Brienne goes one better. She raises her legs and hooks them over his shoulders, her ankles crossed behind him, one bare and one booted, breeches hanging from it like a pennant. The sensation is incredible, the angle exquisite. He has to fight the urge to lose himself in her.

If it wasn’t for the perishing cold, he would want to stay like this forever. In fact, fuck the cold, he could live with it.

Her hands explore the line of his spine, moving down to cup his arse, clutching him and urging his thrusting.

“Harder,” she groans. “More.”

“I - won’t last,” he warns through gritted teeth. She’s so tight, so fucking perfect –

And then she’s contracting around him - flutters and pulses, gasps and screams. Head flung back and hands like talons on his arse. Inside her, his cock gives up all pretence at restraint and he hears himself roar.

Afterwards, she dresses again and goes outside to stoke the fire, putting a kettle on to boil herself some water for her moon tea. He watches her through the tent flap, wrapped in the furs. She still looks troubled, but less so, he thinks. The hard lines on her forehead have softened. A dose of cock could be a wonderful thing for a wench.

By morning, the snow has stopped and the sky is a little brighter. Brienne saddles the horses and packs their bags. Jaime makes a pig’s ear of taking the tent down. They ride away together, breaking their fast with some hard cheese and a couple of softening apples as they ride.

Jaime had hoped they would hit the coast today, though it seems his navigation is a little off. In his defence, the ravaged countryside and the shortened days has made his job harder – by the time they fled the site of the massacred camp he had lost all sense of where they were. This is not an area of Westeros he knows well, either.

Brienne raises a sceptical eyebrow at his excuses, but says nothing.

By mid afternoon, it is clear that they are not at all where Jaime thought. There’s a small, walled settlement on the hills to the West of them, and neither of them can work out exactly what town it is.

Thus far, they have avoided civilisation, just because of the high probability of risen corpses in concentrated groups, but this settlement looks, well – empty. There are no obvious signs of battle or damage, and it looks small enough that there probably weren’t many people inhabiting it in the first place.

As they draw close, the light is fading fast and the horses are cold and exhausted. They have been ridden hard for four straight days on minimal rations without anywhere warm or comfortable to sleep at night.

They see the main gates of the settlement - huge, thick oak barred with strong iron. They have been left ajar. Jaime is curious – did the inhabitants abandon this place as winter came? If so, he can’t understand it – at first glance it looks magnificently defensible. It has a large round tower in the middle, and these hills are the tallest for miles around.

“What do you think?” he asks Brienne.

She’s looking at the tower. “We might be able to see the coast from up there.”

He nods. Spurs his horse up the narrow road that leads to the gates.

Brienne draws Oathkeeper and pushes ahead of him. He bristles a little, but he knows she’s right. If they are attacked, she would be better able to defend them. He draws Widow’s Wail as she kicks the gate open from the back of her horse. Rides through.

Silence. Snow. Wind. The rattle of a door blowing across the courtyard.

Brienne’s eyes, piercing blue as she scans the ramparts, the buildings, the tower. The crease of suspicion between her brows.

Nothing. There is nothing here.

They dismount, investigate on foot. There are the usual town buildings – a blacksmith, a granary, a sept, a rather luxuriously appointed inn, as well as dwellings and storehouses and stables. All empty. Dusty, snow-ridden, but undisturbed for a long time.

“I don’t understand,” Brienne whispers as they make their way back to the main courtyard.

Jaime doesn’t either. There are literally no signs of a struggle of any kind, no discarded weapons, no bloodstains, no desperate barricades, no damage to the walls or the buildings, save one. Only the large tower, the one that stands in the centre of the town atop the sept, looks broken and burnt, but there’s no way of knowing how long ago the damage occurred. It may even predate the war.

“What do you want to do?” he asks.

She shrugs, eyeing the setting sun warily. “I want to sleep in a real bed,” she says with a touch of humour. “Let the horses rest, replenish our supplies a bit.”

“Let’s barricade ourselves in for a few days then,” he says. “Who knows, maybe we can solve this mystery while we’re here.”

They get to work, closing and barring the huge oaken gates. Using the horses to pull a couple of market wagons over them just in case. Brienne takes the horses, leading them to the stables for a meal and a rest on some nice fresh straw. Jaime walks the battlements, just as a precaution, to make sure he sees no one, living or unliving.

Perhaps, he thinks, the town collectively decided to take shelter elsewhere. Perhaps they took ship and headed to another land to escape the dead. In the morning, once the sun rises, they will find a way into the tower over the sept, see if they can spot the ocean. Chances are it’s within easy reach of here.

He climbs down from the battlements and finds Brienne still in the stables, brushing out his horse’s tail. She’s lit a torch to work by, and she looks content and happy in the glow, smiling slightly to herself as she speaks soft words to the faithful old beast.

“Can I treat you to a meal at the inn, my Lady?” he asks when she notices him. “Perhaps a bed for the night?”

She smiles, broad and pleased. “Look what I found too!” she beams. She ducks into one of the stalls and emerges with her prize, a very generous, very inviting tin bath. He gasps.

Together they drag it over to the inn, making room for it in the common room by shoving tables and chairs aside. Jaime gets a roaring fire going in the hearth, pleased that he can use Brienne’s torch to light it without needing to ask for help with the flint and steel.

Brienne roots around in the inn’s cellar, still stocked with food and ale, and manages to compile a hearty supper.  
  
While she’s on kitchen duty, Jaime sets about drawing water from the town’s well for the bath, heating some in kettles and pans on the fire, working tirelessly until it’s a steaming, warming tub of joy. He closes the inn’s front door and realises for the first time in days that he’s actually warm.

She brings him his supper and places it on a table with a mug of ale. It’s not much but it’s delicious – salt fish and hard cheese, a rich spicy chutney and a chunk of hard bread. He devours it all in under ten minutes, washes it down with the sweet ale. Brienne, too, eats passionately, and even goes back for a second mug of the ale, wholly unlike herself.

Jaime’s thoughts, however, turn to the bath. As soon as he’s gulped his last mouthful he’s stripped his boots and breeches off and is fumbling with the fastenings on his jerkin. Then, naked as his nameday, he turns back to her and holds out his hand. “Care to join me?”

She sits at the table fully clothed, fully armed and armoured, ale in her hand, regarding his naked body with nothing short of a _leer_.

She shakes her head. “I’ll just enjoy the show for now.”

So she wants a show? He picks up his scavenged bar of soap and waggles it at her before stepping into the tub. The warmth of it is delicious – he closes his eyes in pleasure he doesn’t need to feign. Sinks in up to his chin and inhales the steam.

She watches him with half-lidded eyes as he dips beneath the water to wet his face and hair, comes up with his head and neck arched back to let the water run in rivers down his neck and chest. He sits up, just enough to let his nipples breath the surface, rubbing the bar of soap across his chest hair, across his shoulders, across his neck. He works the soap into a lather, making sure he rubs it, slowly, into every muscle, every line.

He gets up onto his knees and pushes his hand down the centre of his belly, soaping himself with all the patience he can muster, considering that his cock is full and hard and starting to peek above the bathwater now.

Brienne sits forward in her seat, her ale forgotten, her lips moist and parted, her eyes huge and dark.

He turns his back on her, using the kettle to tip a cascade of water over his shoulder, down the muscular line of his back, over his taut buttocks. Brienne makes a little sound and when he turns back, he sees she has a hand buried in her breeches, clumsily attempting to relieve the ache in her cunt.

She clearly has no idea what she’s doing – she already told him she had never before pleasured herself. But instinct guides her hand now, and the vision is electrifying.

Jaime soaps his left hand and wraps his around his cock, kneeling up in the bath tub to give her a good view. He starts gently, just tugging his foreskin up and down, exposing the swollen red head and swallowing it again, milking a drop of clear liquid from the hole right at the tip.

Brienne is whining now, biting her trembling lower lip as her hand picks up the pace between her legs.

Jaime speeds up his own pace to match, wishing for the billionth time that he had his right hand to do this properly, and to free his left hand to tug his balls. Wanking is only half as good with half the hands.

Brienne is absolutely transfixed, her eyes seemingly rooted on his cock.

“Show me,” he pants. “Please.”

She stands up, the hand in her smallclothes never stopping, but using her free hand to tug them and her breeches down to mid-thigh.

“Closer,” he begs. She shuffles to him on shaky legs, her eyes still locked on his cock. Closer, closer still, until she’s standing right in front of the tub. So close he can hear the wet sounds her fingers make, see the glistening juice on her thighs and fingers, hear her breathy little cries. So close he can smell her excitement.

It’s too much.

His spine arches involuntarily, hips jerking forward as if blindly seeking her. Then he’s spending, seed spilling into the bathtub, ears filled with the sound of his splashing hand, his own groans.

Before he’s had a chance to open his eyes, he feels a hand on the back of his head, grasping his hair. Brienne pulls his head between her legs with a desperate plea.

He puts his mouth on her cunt, flicking his tongue across the hot, aroused flesh. She comes in less than a minute, yelling her joy so loud it makes the inn’s windows vibrate.

Afterwards, she does join him in the bathtub, pink-faced and sated, sipping her ale and chewing on a slice of the hard bread.

“I love you,” she tells him earnestly, her eyes dark and serious. “I loved you always, since … since ….”

She frowns, unable to put her finger on it. He understands. He’s loved her always too, but can’t pinpoint the moment it started. Maybe Harrenhal, maybe the bear pit. Maybe when she stood up for him during those torturous days on the road after his hand was cut off. When Brienne was the only warm, kind thing in his world.

“I love you too,” he whispers. It’s not enough. He wants the words to hold back the dark, to keep them safe, to banish the horror and terror and the imminent end of the world.

Upstairs, they choose the inn’s main bedroom. It’s unbelievably luxurious for a provincial inn – it has a four poster bed draped in gauzy fabric, fine rugs on the floor, soft sheets and blankets edged with lace. On close inspection, the materials are not expensive, but it has all been put together lovingly by someone with exquisite taste, he realises. Even Cersei might have been pleased with it.

Brienne looks almost sheepish about climbing into such a bed, but she sighs with delight as soon as her head hits the feather pillows. He leans over to kiss her goodnight and ends up wrapped in her embrace, locked in an endless kiss.

It’s so tender it makes Jaime ache with love. Why hadn’t he been with Brienne when he had the chance? Why hadn’t he quit the Kingsguard, run to Casterly Rock, got married and made baby after baby after baby with this woman? His father would have bitten his remaining hand off.

He knows the answer to that, of course. Cersei. But the thought of it is like a sweet knife in his heart – a love he could have declared openly, a love he could have sunk himself into, body and soul. This was what Jaime Lannister was made for – the sword hand would have been an irrelevance.

He falls asleep cradled to her chest, breathing the scent of her, loving her hard.

By the time they wake, the sun is well into the sky, and snow falls lazily from a thick cloud. Jaime spends the next hour between Brienne’s legs, hand and mouth and cock, not stopping until she has screamed so loud she probably wakes the Night King himself. They get up, sore and satisfied, and treat themselves to breakfast and another bath.

They walk through the town again, armed and armoured, but holding hands like a pair of teenagers. They stop to kiss in doorways and hold each other in the snowfall, gazing into each other’s eyes. She takes his breath away – not in the way that Cersei did, not with her physical beauty, but because he’s hers. Utterly. It might sound stupid but she keeps him safe from himself, from the Lannister within.

Eventually, their meandering patrol leads them to the sept, with the tall tower on the top. In yesterday’s fading light, they had failed to way up, but they would have seen little anyway. In daylight, they hope to see if they have made it anywhere near the coast.

Inside, the sept is beautiful, sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows, warming the chestnut wood of the pews, the beams, the carved likenesses of the gods. Even the dust and the snow gives it an ethereal, almost mystical quality.

Jaime looks at Brienne, sees the wonder in her eyes, the slightly childlike smile on her face. How wonderful it would have been, he thinks, to have walked into a sept with her, come out of it her husband.

Impetuously, he grabs her hand. “Marry me?” he asks.

She blinks.

“Here,” he says. “Now.”

“Uh … wouldn’t we need a septon for that?”

“Fuck the septons, they’re all drunken hypocrites. Saying the vows in the sight of the gods is what’s important.”

She’s laughing now, a high laugh full of excitement and daring.

He raises an eyebrow. “You can’t tell me you don’t yearn to be Lady Lannister? Think of all that would be yours. Casterly Rock … The Rains of Castamere played whenever you walk into a room … the lion sigil – it’s much better than Tarth’s.”

She opens her mouth in mock horror.

“It is, let’s be honest. It’s much better than every other sigil out there – who doesn’t want to be a lion?”

Brienne pretends to weigh her options. “I suppose there would be the unfettered access to your cock too.”

“Day and night, my lady.”

“I’d quite welcome the opportunity to shit gold.”

“And that.”

There’s a faded red tapestry hanging from the wall. With a flourish, Jaime pulls it down and clumsily manages to wrap it about his shoulders like a cloak. He holds out his golden hand to Brienne.

“Care to be brought under my protection?”

She nods, and he sees the distinct glimmer of tears forming in her sparkling blue eyes.

He has a lump in his throat himself.

She has to help him put the tapestry cloak about her shoulders, and tie it herself. Then she places her hand on top of his. She pulls off her swordbelt, resting Oathkeeper against one of the pews while she uses the belt to bind their hands together.

They look each other in the eyes while they recite the names of the gods, stumbling haltingly through what they remember of the wedding service, correcting each other and giggling at each other’s mistakes. But as they finish, a bright shaft of light beams through the window in front of them, crossing their joined hands in a warm kiss of sun.

It seems miraculous – a touch from the gods. There’s no doubt in Jaime’s mind that they truly are married.

He steps close, and leans up to kiss her, tenderly. Her. His wife. His wife Brienne.

“How about a bedding ceremony, my Lady Wife?” he says with a wry smile.

She smiles too, cheekily. “If it please my Lord Husband.”

“Oh, it would.”

He considers sweeping her into his arms, carrying her off to bed, but it’s a long way to the inn and he doubts his back would thank him. Instead, he chivalrously bends to kiss her calloused knuckles, and makes to leave.

But there, in the corner, at the back of the sept, something catches his attention.

Movement. Breathing. A set of eyes glittering in the dark.

He stops. Looks. There’s another. And another.

He grabs Brienne, who is reattaching Oathkeeper to her hip. Jerks his head towards the back of the room.

She sees them too. Draws her sword.

Jaime restrains her. Stands in front of her.

“It’s all right,” he says. Gently. “We won’t hurt you.”

They step put of the light then. Three of them, dirty, bedraggled, emaciated.

Three little girls. Three sisters, he thinks – they are very much alike. Blonde curls, blue eyes. The youngest clutching a doll.

Jaime crouches. Holds out his hand, hoping his smile is reassuring.

The oldest steps towards him. Shielding her sisters, speaking for them. Her eyes big and full of hope. “Are you our new mother and father?” she asks. “We prayed for you to come.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to CaptainTarthister as always for inspiring some of the filth and for being encouraging and fab.
> 
> I hope everyone is still enjoying this story! Thanks for all the kudos and the comments :)


	5. No Men Like Me ...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He’s very strong.”  
> “Who?”  
> “Jaime. Isn’t he.”  
> Brienne blinks in surprise. She can’t think of an instance when Jaime has displayed his strength. She does the hauling, the wood chopping, the mucking out. She does the training.

The cold, watery sun has risen, but it isn’t giving much life to the landscape around her. Brienne sits on horseback, watching the pale light gleam on the frosty rooftops of the small town. She patrols as she does every morning, checking the buildings, checking the gates. Walking the battlements to see if she can see anything.

As always, she sees nothing.

Not a person, not a wight. Not an animal, anywhere. Not even a breath of wind. Snow hasn’t fallen since their first night here. Two weeks ago.

Brienne trots back to the stables, mucks out and feeds the horses. As always, the hay store is full. They have been here almost a fortnight and have barely made a dent. At first, she had thought it was her imagination, but today she knows it’s not right. Last night, when she had put the horses to bed, she had deliberately shoved the top half of the hay over to one side of the store with the fork. This morning, it’s spread back to the middle.

When she’s done, she goes back to the inn. Takes off her armour in the common room and creeps up the creaking wooden staircase to Jaime. He’s fast asleep in the big four-poster bed – but he’s not alone. As usual, their three charges, the three little girls they found in the sept the day after they had arrived, are asleep with him.

Irys, the eldest, is off to one side in Brienne’s place. The two younger, Jissyca and Alys, are cuddled up to Jaime tightly. Jaime has his arms around them both, sleeping like a babe with a smile on his face.

It’s been this way since the day they had found the girls. Whatever had happened here had obviously disturbed them greatly – every night without fail all three have woken from terrible dreams and crept into bed with Jaime and Brienne.

The sunlight through the window kisses all the blonde hair on the pillows, the gold of Jaime’s naked chest, his sleep-soft lips, slightly parted.

Oh, he makes her so weak. Just looking at him makes her belly turn to liquid, makes her chest ache and her nipples hard. He’s just so truly beautiful. She still can’t believe he’s hers.

He opens his eyes, blinking in the streaming daylight. His smile broadens when he sees her, his hair flopping onto his forehead as he lifts his head from the white feather pillows.

“Morning,” he whispers.

She beckons him silently, and the lust must be plastered all over her face because his mouth quirks into a dirty grin immediately. He gently extricates himself from Jissyca and Alys – they wriggle in protest but don’t wake.

He takes Brienne’s hand, his fingers warm in hers, and lets her lead him from the room. He’s only wearing his smallclothes, and she notices with a smirk that by the time they get to the end of the corridor that the front of them bulges distinctively.

So much for talking. They creep into one of the inn’s other bedrooms – a small, cosy double with a very soft, creaky bed bedecked in a Lannister-crimson bedspread. Jaime closes the door behind them and props a chair against it. Not enough to jam it shut, just enough to give them some time to throw clothes on if one of the girls gets up.

He turns back to her – he doesn’t need words. He pulls her tunic up, struggling with his lone hand to get it off over her head, but not letting it deter him. His mouth is on Brienne’s nipple immediately, a shock of wet and warmth and bite. She lets out a gust of breath that sounds like a groan and digs her hands into his hair.

His hair … it’s grown so long – how has this happened? She runs her fingers through it as he moves his mouth urgently to her other breast, humming and smacking his lips in delight. It’s the same length it was when she first met him – but then he’d been in captivity for a year.

She can’t remember what it looked like when they had fled the burned out camp, the memory seems distant and contorted – but it hadn’t been this long, had it? No … he’d cropped it. It had been short when he had left King’s Landing.

His hand is in her breeches now, burrowing into her smallclothes, and she doesn’t want to think about his hair any more. Just his fingers, just her cunt, just getting her clothes off and getting his mouth on her, now, now, quick …

She kicks her breeches and smallclothes across the floor and pulls him back onto the bed with her, pushing on his shoulders so he knows what she wants. Of course, he knows already. It’s what she always wants – his tongue on her cunt is an addiction, and that feeling, gods, that _feeling_! Indescribable. She never knew such pleasure existed in this world.

She spreads her legs, but he leans away, reaching to the head of the bed to grab the pillows. He throws them at her with a cheekily raised eyebrow. “Don’t wake the girls,” he whispers.

She shoves them both over her face.

Then his mouth is on her, using his tongue to part the lips of her cunt. Even the sensation of his breath on her makes her shiver with delight. His lips capture and suckle that sweet sweet part of her that only Jaime knows. And when his mouth is there, when his lips suck, when his tongue swirls, when his teeth graze it, Brienne is gone. She’s lost in shadows, lost in swirling colours, lost in the sound of her own joyous cries.

Jaime is incredible.

She wails into the pillows, her hips slamming into his mouth, her toes curled, her hands grasping at sheets, at his hair, at nothing.

His tongue is merciless – it’s evil. She tries to twist away but he follows every movement that her hips make, his hand and his stump held fast to her rear to keep her in place. She can feel the hot breath of his wicked laughter in the hair between her legs.

She howls his name into the pillows as he takes her over the edge – the dark rushes up to snatch and pull at her consciousness, red lightning raging behind her eyes. Every part of her is alive with crackling magic that burns and churns and pumps and pulses. Every muscle. Every breath.

She’s still weeping with joy when he rolls her sated, boneless body over onto her belly and mounts her from behind. He pushes inside her still-pulsing cunt so smoothly it feels like he has always been there.

His rhythm is fast and passionate, almost furious. He pants hard against her shoulder, his hand hot and sweaty where it grips her hip hard, his thighs slapping against hers with every thrust. She leans back over her own shoulder to kiss him to realise he isn’t looking at her.

She follows his wild, unfocused gaze – she hadn’t noticed the large polished mirror on the wall opposite the bed. Jaime is watching himself as he fucks her.

She can’t blame him – he is a magnificent thing, and he looks even more magnificent in the throes of rutting. Brienne is flushed and blotchy from her climax, but Jaime _glows_. His golden hair is perfectly in place save for three flawless strands that have dropped down onto his forehead – Brienne’s is frizzed and sticking up wildly in all directions.

She looks _huge_ too – from her angle it looks like he’s fucking an aurochs. Her wide thighs, her broad back, her muscular rump. How is he so turned on by this?

He gives her arse a playful slap and it seems to push him to his climax. He arches his back and tips his head back on his neck, his thrusts slowing to frantic jerks. He moans low in his throat as she feels him spend inside her.

Panting and spent, they collapse on the soft bed together, he on top of her, on her back. He buries his face in her skin and licks the sweat from between her shoulderblades.

“Oh I love you, Lady Lannister,” he breathes against her. “I’ll never stop, my Lady, I swear it.”

He snuggles down against her back, his softening cock still twitching a little inside her. He looks at the reflection of them pressed against one another in the mirror, a handsome grin on his face.

“Mmmmmm,” he sighs. “Look at us.”

She chuckles. “Look at _you_!”

He lifts his head and fixes her with a pointed gaze. “But not at you?”

She smiles, attempting to keep it light. “Let’s not pretend I am much to look upon, my Lord.”

“And you think this concerns me?”

She sighs, unable to meet his eyes. “Well, you have spent your life with a woman of uncommon loveliness.”

“Ah,” his eyes narrow. “You think me a shallow man.”

“No …”

“You think I was with Cersei because of her beauty? That beauty is the way to hold my heart?”

“I didn’t mean – “

“I think perhaps we need to have a little talk about Cersei.”

“Jaime – “

He settles back down on top of her, kissing her back once more. Nuzzling the back of her neck with his beard. When he speaks, his voice is patient and kind, as it is when he explains something to one of the girls.

“Do you know what Cersei was to me? Or what I thought she was?”

Brienne isn’t sure she wants to know, but she shakes her head.

“Family,” he says.

Her eyes find his eyes in the mirror, but he isn’t looking at their reflection any more. His eyes are dull and troubled, dropped to the skin on her back. He seems to be examining the little scar she has there.

“It sounds so obvious!” he complains. “Of course family. I’m a stupid man, Brienne, not good with finding words. But with Cersei I felt whole. I felt I _belonged_.”

He lets out a bitter little chuckle, warm against her spine.

“Not just _with_ her. _To_ her. I liked that – I did.”

He brushes his long hair back from his face.

“When I rode North, when I came to you at Winterfell, I wanted one thing, my beloved wench, and it wasn’t something you can find in a woman’s face. It’s what I wanted all along, what I’ve been looking for all my life.”

“What?” she whispers.

“Safety,” he says. “Home.”

He looks at her with the most naked eyes – they _burn_ her with their need, with their raw, almost desperate love. Jaime is a strange man, Brienne thinks. Alone, he’s wild, rudderless. Honourless. He cares for nothing, not even his own life. But in love … Jaime is purely, undeniably true and faithful. _Honourable._ She knows now that the honour she had always seen in him was his love for her, nascent and developing.

Others hadn’t seen it because he was not in love with them.

Brienne rolls over, taking him in her big arms. Not caring that she has big arms now, now it feels right to be able to envelop him in them, protect him.

He folds himself into her embrace and rests in the hollow of her neck, his skin warm and his kisses tender. The world shrinks to the size of the room, the size of the bed, and then there is only Jaime, only Brienne. Only their eyes and their lips and their breath and their shared warmth.

They rise and dress when they hear the girls wake. They are cheery this morning, jumping on Jaime’s back and hitting him with pillows as he pulls his breeches on, laughing and shrieking. He ushers them downstairs, carrying little Alys on his back and getting them seated around one of the inn’s wide tables with cups of fresh water to await their food. He has a huge smile on his face, and his hair seems even more golden in the wintery morning light, the exact same shade as the girls’.

Brienne takes herself off to the kitchen. She’s not an accomplished cook, but she can manage better than Jaime and his single hand, and quicker too. She lights the stove to get it warming, and trudges into the larder to see what she can find to break their fast.

She looks at the shelves. Stops dead in her tracks.

“Any more porridge?” Behind her. Jaime.

Brienne leaps out of her skin and bangs her head on the shelf above her.

He winces for her. “Are you all right?”

“Jaime, someone’s here.”

“What?”

“In the town. Someone else.”

“What do you mean?”

She lowered her voice. Pulled him into the storeroom and closed the door behind him. “Look at this. How many times have we had porridge for breakfast?”

He shrugged. “Most days?”

“Most days. So why is the jar still two-thirds full? And look – the pickled fish. Seven jars. There have been seven jars ever since we got here. I know we finished one last night. I washed the empty one out, it’s on the table out there. This morning – seven jars in the pantry. Someone has been in here, Jaime. Someone is replacing our food.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“You could just be miscounting. Eight jars looks much the same as seven in the dark in here.”

“I’m not miscounting.”

“It doesn’t make much sense to me. Why would someone replace our food?”

“To keep us here?”

“Why?” he laughs. “And where would they be getting all the pickled fish?”

“I don’t know,” she has to admit.

“They might replace it with something else, just to have a bit of variety,” he complains with a grin. He grabs the porridge jar off the shelf and opens the storeroom door. The three girls are out there, in the kitchen. Alys and Jissyca are running around, giggling and screaming at each other. Irys is right by the door.

Of the three Irys is by far the most serious, the most troubled. She doesn’t speak much, and she certainly doesn’t join in with the laughter and games of her sisters that much. She mostly watches Jaime and Brienne with sad, serious eyes. Brienne wonders if she will talk to them, tell them what happened here. As the eldest, it’s likely she has the greatest understanding.

Jaime shoos all three of them back to the table, leaving Brienne to cook the porridge.

As she stirs the pot on the stove, she has an idea. She takes her knife from her belt – holds the porridge jar up to the wan light from the kitchen window and scratches it, right at the level the porridge currently sits at. If it’s filled up again by morning, she will know. She will be able to prove it to Jaime.

It’s making her uneasy. The thought that someone is here, watching them closely enough to know what they eat, makes her sword hand itch. She thinks about sitting up all night, maybe hiding in the storeroom or the stable with Oathkeeper by her side, to see if she can catch them.

She brings out the steaming bowls of porridge on a wooden tray, dishing them up to the beaming girls, all of whom are arguing about who gets to sit next to Jaime. He solves it by having Irys and Jissyca either side of him, Alys on his lap while they eat. Jaime helps himself to the sugar bowl for his porridge. Brienne accompanies hers with a horn of ale.

“Can we train today Brienne?” asks Irys, pushing one side of her golden curls behind her ear. Her voice is quiet, but her bright blue eyes are lively and excited at the thought.

Brienne nods over her ale. “You must train every day if you hope to do it right.”

“I do,” Irys says, her mouth settling into a serious line that Brienne recognises all too well. It was her girlhood face, the one she used to persuade her father she was serious about learning to fight.

Brienne had begun training the girls as part of a plan for leaving the town. All too aware that they needed to get to safety, to find out who had survived the devastating dragon attack on their war camp a moon ago, she had worried that having to protect the girls reduced their chances of survival dramatically. Teaching them a modicum of fighting skills could make all the difference.

Every day she has them out in the square, using sticks as swords, using trays from the inn as shields, showing them footwork, showing them swordplay, showing them how to defend themselves.

The younger two find Brienne’s training fun, but little more. They lose interest quickly and have to be corralled by Jaime while Brienne works with Irys. The older girl, however, has taken to it well – she is physically gifted and moves well. Jaime has shown her how to use her size to her advantage while she spars with Brienne too, and she’s getting better at anticipating.

She’s certainly a better student than Podrick Payne.

Pod. The very thought of him brings a lump to Brienne’s throat. The last time she had seen him, he had been waving Jaime and her off on their scouting mission. There had been a dirty smirk on his face not at all befitting a squire.

She would trade almost anything to see that smirk again. She hopes fervently that he somehow escaped.

After they have broken their fast, the girls go upstairs with Jaime to dress and ready themselves for training. Brienne takes the porridge bowls into the kitchen to wash them – yet another task Jaime struggles with one-handed.

She goes into the storeroom to check the scratched porridge jar. Nothing has changed – the porridge still sits at the level of her scratch. She lets out a little breath – perhaps she’s imagining this. There are rational explanations for all of it.

As she comes out of the storeroom, however, she notices that the empty pickled fish jar, the one she washed out yesterday, is missing from the table where she left it. She had seen it, not thirty minutes before – she had shown it to Jaime while explaining her suspicions. All the hair on the back of her neck stands up, and suddenly she yearns for Oathkeeper on her hip. The sword is upstairs, stashed in a wardrobe with Widow’s Wail.

There is no way in and out of this kitchen, or the storeroom, save for the inn’s common room. She, Jaime and the girls have not left the room, even once.

She starts to grope along the walls in the storeroom, seeing if there might be a hidden entranceway. Seeing if there is anything out of place. She finds nothing but solid walls, and then solid floors. No trapdoors, no hidden cellars. It makes no sense.

“The girls are ready,” says Jaime from behind her. “What are you doing?”

She gets up from her hands and knees, flustered. He’s standing on the storeroom steps, looking at her with a puzzled grin on his face. She hasn’t even washed the breakfast bowls. “Just … looking.”

“Fair enough.” He looks around them. “Hmm … It’s nice and quiet in here,” he says thoughtfully. “Out of the way. I suspect that if we shut the door while the girls slept they wouldn’t hear you squeal from here.”

“I do not _squeal._ ”

“Have you not heard yourself? I get my tongue on you and you’re like a stuck pig, my Lady!” he laughs.

He grabs her playfully, hand darting under her tunic, tickling her belly while he makes pig noises at her. She squirms, laughing, and their lips meet, quickly, quickly, then slowly and for longer.

She closes her eyes, drinking deeply from his mouth, sucking that wicked tongue across her own. The sensation of kissing him is delicious, as is the warmth of his skin against her own. She had never known that beauty was something you could feel, but there’s no other word for it. Jaime feels beautiful in her arms.

They share a smile, full of secret pleasures, and the promise of more to come.

“The girls are waiting,” he whispers. “Tire them out before tonight?”

She laughs, a laugh that from anyone else, she would have said was close to a _giggle_. Not like her at all. Jaime takes her hand and leads her out of the storeroom.

As they walk up the steps to the kitchen, Brienne notices the porridge jar is full again. A good inch above her scratch.

As always, Jissyca and Alys play about with their sticks for a while, and then it descends into a game of chase. Snow is thrown, someone slips over, and Jaime has to come out to take care of them. He takes them to the far side of the square, where, despite the tears and grumbles, they all continue building the snowman they started yesterday.

Irys and Brienne continue to train. Brienne adjusts the oldest girl’s stance, showing her how to move her feet so she does not give away where she will attack. She tries it, feinting left and then attacking Brienne’s right. She’s clumsy at first, and her eyes give the game away, but by the end of the session, she has it down perfectly.

As always, they end the session with some serious sparring. Brienne circles her mercilessly, stepping up the pressure today, wanting her to feel the pressure of a real attack, to get used to dealing with thinking at speed.

Jaime watches from across the courtyard as Brienne rains a flurry of attacks down on the girl with her stick, watching as Irys blocks and parries, then tries to find openings for her own attacks. She’s good, Brienne can see it – can see Jaime’s pride.

She can see his yearning too, wanting his right hand back, wanting to show her how he would deal with her attacks, wishing he was in Irys’s position – young and hungry, with everything to prove.

They lunch afterwards – some more pickled fish and some dried apples. Then Brienne heads down to feed and exercise the horses a little, giving Irys an impromptu riding lesson as well, while Jaime bathes the two younger girls.

She sits behind her on the saddle of her big chestnut, holding the young girl’s hands over the reins, showing her how to move them, how to control the animal with gentle touches of her feet and hands.

As always, Irys is a diligent student, listening sensibly and trying things out carefully. They trot around the marketplace for a while before venturing further, into the narrow streets of the deserted town. Brienne is wary – there are a million places people could hide here, though she sees no sign of anyone.

“You’re doing well,” she tells Irys as she manages to navigate around a tricky corner by the Sept.

“Will I need to be able to ride before we leave?”

“We only have two horses. We will need to work out how we’re going to do it.”

“When will we leave?”

Brienne sighs. “I don’t know. The food _will_ run out eventually.” Even their secret benefactor can’t keep them supplied indefinitely in winter.

“He’s very strong.”

“Who?”

“Jaime. Isn’t he.”

Brienne blinks in surprise. She can’t think of an instance when Jaime has displayed his strength. She does the hauling, the wood chopping, the mucking out. She does the training.

But the girls love him. Perhaps this is something of a girlhood crush. Perhaps Irys just wants to know that Jaime will be able to defend them too.

“Yes,” she concurs in what she hopes is a reassuring voice. “He’s very strong.”

As the sun goes down, the snow begins to fall again, for the first time in days. Brienne and Irys head back to the stables, and settle the horses down for the night.

Jaime is waiting for them back at the inn, a warm smile on his face. The inn glows with candlelight and firelight, golden and gorgeous. There is a steaming bath waiting for them, and a light supper, which they all eat together.

After food, Irys bathes first, while Jaime gets the younger two to sleep. After she goes up to bed, Brienne soaks, washing and warming her aching muscles.

With the snow falling thick outside, the town feels extra hushed tonight. Just the gentle splash of the bathwater, the sigh of her breath, the spit and crackle of the fire in the inn’s hearth. She lies back, eyes closed, inhaling the steam.

The stairs creak as Jaime comes down – Brienne opens her eyes to see him, a bundle of blankets and furs and pillows in his arms. He has a smile on his face, a dreamy, happy, content sort of smile. He drops the blankets by the fire, and she watches him as he spreads them out, making a nest with the pillows, a warm cocoon for them both.

Brienne follows him with her eyes as he pours himself a wine. He offers one to her but she shakes her head. She already feels giddy – the steam, the heat, the relaxation. The promise of the delicious lovemaking to come.

He pulls up a chair behind her and tries to give her a neck massage. It’s not great with only one hand, but it’s kindly meant, so she sighs and moans in all the right places and leans up and offers her lips to his.

He takes them eagerly, leaning into the bath to kiss and kiss and kiss her until they are both breathless. They kiss until his hair is wet from her hands and her back is sore.

She pulls away and stands up, naked and dripping, and the way he looks at her naked body makes her feel like a goddess. She feels huge, like she towers over him, that her arms are as thick as his waist, and he’s looking at her like he wants her to eat him alive.

And he is so beautiful. His golden hair falling into his eyes, his elegant limbs, his graceful poise, his perfect lips. So utterly beautiful. She straddles him on the chair, sits herself across his lap.

He wraps himself in her arms, not caring that she is dripping, his mouth going straight for her hot wet nipples, then back to her mouth.

Was she always this big? She feels enormous. He feels tiny in her arms, she feels like she’s swamping him, like she’s consuming him, like he’s little more than a beautiful doll in her embrace. She’s pulling him back onto the furs by the fire, and she’s side by side with him and he’s kissing her and kissing her.

He gets up on this knees to pull his tunic off, and pull at the laces on his breeches. She looks down at herself, at her body in the firelight. The flickering light dances on her belly, and it looks amazing, her muscles so much more defined than they ever have been before. Is it the training?

Her arms too, and her legs – the muscles bulge and shine in the glow from the fire – how has this happened? She looks stronger, more powerful than she ever has before.

Jaime gazes down at her with such desire. His lips parted, his eyes alight. His hair so bright it’s like spun gold. It’s _flowing_ now, over his shoulders, down his back. He dips his face between her parted legs and his hair spills all over them both. Golden. Bright.

Brienne cries out – his tongue is incredible. She arches her back against the furs, against the pillows – they are impossibly soft, impossibly warm, yielding beneath her like a living thing. Her hands grasp out, needing to hold onto something. They graze the smooth stone of the inn floor, but there’s something else.

She opens her eyes, overwhelmed by the sound of her own moaning.

Between the stones, between the cracks – leaves. Plants, flowers. Sprouting and growing before her very eyes. Beautiful, wonderful. Romantic.

Brienne comes. Comes again. His tongue is impossible – it’s everywhere and it doesn’t stop, does not slow down. Her body arches off the furs so hard that only her shoulders and heels are touching the floor. His hand is on her thighs, on her belly, on her teats. Caressing, squeezing, pinching and pulling.

She is inside out. The furs are flowers. The furs are grass. The scent of them fills her nostrils and caresses her raw, sensitive skin. This is wrong, her brain screams from the depths of a seventh orgasm, it’s _wrong_ , it’s _wrong_ it’s WRONG!

But then he is on top of her, his weight warm and sweet between her legs, his cock large and pulsing and twitching. _Has it always been this big?_ He’s as lost as she is, and she can almost see the trails of fire on her skin where he touches her. He’s melting her.

His hair swamps them now, wraps them up – soft and brilliant as summer sunshine. This is beauty, this is never ending beauty. And he’s inside her, his warm cock thick and full and radiant. Now she’s little more than liquid, pooling, running, blending into him, bleeding into him. She’s lost all form and substance, she can’t see or hear or touch or taste. There’s only Jaime, in all her pores, in all her senses. Everywhere.

But still he’s kissing her, holding her, cupping her face in both his hands.

He’s never done that – it feels strange. His hands … his hands … his _hands!_

She screams. A full throated scream of terror.

It breaks everything. Everything.

Cold rushes in on her bones like a knife. The hardness of the floor beneath her back. The dark too – oppressive and snowy.

Jaime pushes her away. She pushes him away. They look at each other, panting and naked.

The inn is dark and cold and empty. There are cobwebs everywhere, dust on all the tables. The bath has gone, and the luxurious pile of blankets and furs they were fucking on is a dirty, bloodstained rug.

She’s hungry, too. Her stomach small and shrunken.

“What?” she pants. “What happened?”

Jaime looks like he is going to be sick.

Behind him, at the top of the stairs, a young woman stands.

It’s Irys. But not Irys. She’s older, a woman grown, maybe sixteen or seventeen. She comes forward, her long hair falling down her back. Her face is the same, but her hair is much darker, and her eyes are brown, not blue at all. There’s no Jissyca. No Alys. Just Irys, stepping into the cold, snowy light of the landing.

Brienne instinctively steps in front of Jaime. She gropes behind herself on the table. Closes her hand around one of the stubby candlesticks. It’s dusty and cobwebby.

Irys has blue lips. Bright blue, like the warlocks Brienne has heard tell of over the Narrow Sea. She gapes at her.

“Did you do this?” she demands.

Irys smiles. Her teeth are blue too. Shade of the evening. She shakes her head.

“Not me,” she says. “Jaime.”

“J-Jaime?” Brienne turns to Jaime.

He is shivering. Glassy eyed, confused and disoriented. Short-haired. Taller – almost as tall as she is again. “Jaime did this?”

His eyes find hers, shrieking and wide. But powerful. There’s something in them …

“It was me …” he gasps.

Irys nods. She walks down the stairs. “I told you, Brienne. Jaime is very, very strong.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the cliffhanger - I promise there will be explanations in the next chapter.
> 
> Seriously, so many thanks for the massive, massive handhold on this from @CaptainTarthister. This chapter made me massively craven and tbh without her I would not have posted it. She's like a skinful of whisky and a shot in the arm all in one. I owe you millions, sweet lady.

**Author's Note:**

> My first Jaime/Brienne fic. Also first ASOIAF/GoT fic, and first fic in a long long long time. I'm rusty, so please be gentle!
> 
> Will write the next part if people like this one!


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